Purging device



Nov. 20 1923 P. VAN VLISSINGEN PURGING DEVICE Filed April '24. 1922 Patented Nov. 20, 1.923.

YETEB VAN VLISSINGEN, OF CHICAGO,

' PUG DEVICE.

Application and s in as, 1922. 8erla1lto.556,252.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, PETER VAN Vmssm- GEN, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and. useful Improvements in Purging Devices, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to operation of mail order businesses and the like; and particularly to an improved means whereby the files may be accurately purged with great 7 rapidity.

Elli) The invention will be better understood if a few preliminary considerations are recited. A mail order business is operated on a very small ,margin of profit for each transaction; the number of units involved in each routine operation is enormous. Operating costs are a vital factor in the busi ness. Any reduction in the time involved in carrying out a normal step of operation, because multiplied by so many hundreds of thousands of times, effects very large aggregate annual saving. Furthermore, it is he quently and truly said that the success of mail order business is dependent largely on the amount of its complaint and adjustinent mail. to handle every .complaint and adjustment letter received. If every customer of a mail order house would write such a letter, say once a week, it mi ht easily put the house out of business. uch mail is'inost effectively avoided by accuracy and promptness in transacting business.

The standard practice in operation of mail order business is to told about each batch of pa ers relating to a transaction such as an receive ay, each formin a separate file; it is evident that it these les were permitted to accumulate, they would overrun the establishment, and

furthermore the time consumed in operation of finding a particular file, and the precision of that operation, is greatly affected by the number of files. Thus it is obviously more diidcult to find a particular file among ten It is estimated to cost 50 cents thousand than among a thousand, and

chances of deceptive duplication in identi-' fying data are reatl increased in proportion to the numher o files.

The invention facilitates purging whereby obsolete files are removed promptly and accurately, and the drawin illustrative embodiment thereo in which Figure 1 is a perspective viewof a drawer full of files,

Figure 2 is an elevation of one of the wrappers.

Figure 3 shows a set of purging designs.

The wrapper 1 (Figure 2) is folded over a sheaf of papers, the fold coming within the area indicated by the lines, 2 2. The wrapper bears spaces for stamps, inscri tion and other identifying data, as in icated at 3.

'lhe wrapper and enclosed papers are pimped or otherwise fastened together and e it is exceedingly important, for speed and accuracy in purging that the files to be removed be recognized infallibly and instantly, although so packed in drawers that only the top edge of the wrapper can he seen.

I provide wrappers. (1) with a set (in this instance five) of conspicuous marks or purging designs. These designs may be printed along with the other printed matter on th wrapper. They are so formed-and arranged as to provide a distinctive, unmistakable and conspicuous mark, which extends across the fold in the wrapper, wherever that iold occurs, so that the mark may be seen and reco ized in a packed drawer looked at from a ove; i. e., where onl the upper edges of the files are visible. ach mark of the set is further designed with reference to the other marks, i. e., so as to reveal itself conspicuously, and distinctively, from each of the other marks of the set employed, even though only a small part thereof, at the upper edge of the file, is visible. Thus the marks form accurately a cooperative set or combination.

I regard the mutual distinctiveness of these marks one from another as an important feature of the invention; this onsures accuracy both. in the purging and the subsequent inspection of the pur ed files, consonantly with the greatest speed. 7

. In the drawings 1 have shown a set of fiv de'si us, A, B, C, D, E, as follows: A isa soli black block B is a series of vertical present an lid stripes. C is a series of heavy oblique stripes running from right to left. D is a series of dots. E is a series of oblique smaller stripes running from left to right. Each of these conspicuous marks may be printed on the wrapper in the same ink along with the other matter thereon. Each of them extends over a sufiicient vertical area, that wherever the wrapper is folded its fold will traverse the mark and roduce the same appearance at the fold. ach of these marks is so conspicuously different from any other that the eye instantly distinguishes it, although only a very narrow strip along the fold is visible. This will be more apparent if two pieces of paper are laid on the drawings, having a slit or opening only one sixteenth of an inch wide and covering the marks. It will be seen that no difficulty is encountered in instantly distinguishing them.

For further rapidity in operation, I locate each of the selected marks in a different position along the wrapper. While this somewhat assists in distinguishing them from each other, its most important result is that it contributes great rapidity to the purging, because all of the marks on files to be purged will be aligned in a drawer and they will arrange themselves however scattered, in definite visible ranks of distinctive and conspicuous marks, whereby the purging operation is much facilitated and its speed and accuracy increased.

In operation, each batch of papers relating to a particulartransaction of a normal type is provided with one of the five wrappers folded over the top of the batch, as previously .described. These wrappers are applied, one during 'each purging period, which might be a month or two weeks or any other arbitrary period. Assuming the period to be one month, then by the time the E wrapper is applied the A wrappers -will be at least three and not more than purged files are placed on edge in trays and inspected by a supervisor;

- The invention (a) effects a saving in opcrating costs by simplifying and speeding up the purging operation, and the inspecLi-on thereof. The purging operation in a large mail order house is a task of no small magnitude as may be appreciated when it is said'that there may be more than a million files to be purged each month. (b) The inventigon efiiects a saving by its superior accuracy.

The invention furthen facilitates not only the removal from the drawers of all unnecessary files at the earliest possible moment, but through its speed and accuracy perunits the purging period to be adjusted close to the safe limit; thatvis, to efi'ect the accurate removal of all files, just as soon as they need no longer be kept. Quite aside from the reduction in maintenance, housing, etc., of equipment (such as filing drawers,) this effects substantial economies in operation because it reduces to the lowest limit the number of files from which a desired one may be picked, and by reducin the number of the files itreduces the likelihood of error in selection between deceptively similar files ('i.e., cases where name and initial'are alike, etc.) inaccuracy and delay produce floods of complaint and'adjustment mail, which it is one of the main objects of operation to avoid. The invention in the several ways described helps reduce such mail. It will be appreciated that small savings in time, and small improvements in accuracy, perhaps inconsiderable in other types of business, are of supreme importance inthe mail order buoiness, where an individual small item of waste or economy is multiplied literally by millions.

I claim:

1. A purging system for files comprising in combination a succession of sets of wrap-' pers, each'adapted to be folded over and enclose the top edge of a file, designs com prising solidcolor, vertical stripes, oblique stripes and dots, applied to said sets of said wrappers across the line of fold therein, whereby from an inspection of the top of a file drawer, all files containin a particular design may be readily purge 2. A purging system for files comprising in combination a succession of sets of wrappers, each adapted to be folded over and onclose the top edge of a file, designs comprising solid color, vertical stripes, obliquestripes and dots, applied to said sets of said wrappers across the line of fold therein, whereby from an inspection of the top of a file drawer, all files containing a particular design may be readily purged, said design of each type being arranged at a different place along the line of the fold, whereby all said designs of the same type will be in alin'ement from front to rear of a drawer. 3. A purging system for files comprising in combination a succession of sets of wrappers, each adapted to be folded ever and enclose the top edge of the file, a mark applied to the Wrapper of each set and crossing the line of t e fold therein, said mark being located at a difierent point along the line of the fold in each set.

4. A purging system for, file drawers, a wrapper adapted to be folded over the top edge of a file, a conspicuous mark applied to the wrapper across the line of the fold, in combination with a wrapper hearing a conspicuously difl'erent mark.

5. A purging system for files comprising in combination a succession of sets of wrappers, each adapted to be folded over and enclose the top edge of a file, conspicuously different designs applied to the said sets of wrappers across the line of fold therein whereby from inspection of the top of the file drawer, all files containing a particular design may be purged.

6. A purging device for a wrapper or the like, adapted to be folded over the top edge of a file, comprising a conspicuous mark on the Wrapper, said mark arranged across the normal line of fold and extending a substantial distance above and below the same, whereby substantial variations in the position of the fold line are accommodated and said line made to intersect said mark.

7. A purging device for a wrapper or the like, adapted to be folded over the top edge of a file, comprising a conspicuous mark on the wrapper, said mark arranged across the normal line of fold and'extending a substantial distance above and below the same, whereby substantial variations in the position of the fold line are accommodated and said line made to intersect said mark, said mark being so designed as to produce a uniform appearance along the line of fold wherever the said line intersects the mark.

In witness whereof, I hereunto subscribe my name this 17th day of April, A. D., 1922.

PETER VAN VLISSINGENi 

